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| Friday, February 15, 2008 |
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The Dude Abides
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 What the hell does "The dude abides" mean? I was seeing this catchphrase all over the Internet, coupled with a picture of Jeff Bridges looking like a latter-day Jim Morrison. I guessed this was the new "You da man!," sportscaster Scott Ferrall's old catchphrase. It all had something to do with a movie called The Big Lebowski.
I finally got tired of feeling hopelessly unhip and rented The Big Lebowski at Hollywood Video a couple of weeks ago. Wow...copyright 1998. I guess I'm a little behind on movies.
Just from reading the cover I knew what I was in for. This was going to be one of those cult movies that artsy college kids go for where a couple characters stand around having nonsensical, profanity-drenched conversations about "life," just as the college kids probably have around a bong on Friday night. For predecessors in this genre see Slacker and Clerks.
I called it pretty well. For the person besides me who hasn't seen this yet, the plot is that Jeff Bridges is a guy who's name is Jeff Lebowski but prefers to be called "The Dude." Drug money collection agents get him mixed up with a well-to-do guy around town also known as Lebowski, who's trophy wife owes them money. The Dude's rug gets damaged in the process of their collection effort and The Dude goes looking for revenge -- someone will pay for this rug!
From there, a series of events happen, and a series of characters turn up who give The Dude a different explanation of what's going on. Figuring out the correct interpretation is necessary for the Dude to find a million dollars and rescue a kidnapped woman.
CAUTION: Dialogue, plot and ending given away in the next paragraphs!
The Big Lebowski seems to be trying to make some metaphysical point in all the f-bombs and crazy hallucination sequences. When it was over I spent some time trying to grasp just what the point was.
Lebowski vs. Lebowski
It's not just for storytelling's sake that there are two characters named Lebowski, I don't think. We will find by the end that they are actually very alike, two different sides of the same coin.
The millionaire Lebowski and the bum Dude Lebowski have a dialogue where the millionaire talks about the importance of working and being productive. The Dude Lebowski responds, "Yeah, whatever," or something like that, and the millionaire Lebowski says, "That's your answer to everything!" This dialogue is important because it sets up the philosophical quandary of the movie: focus and reason versus "yeah, whatever."
The Nihilists
There's a guy floating in the pool who's introduced as being a Nihilist, "They believe in nothing." This is important to the entire movie, because nihilism is it's foundation. Every version of what happened turns out to have been false, though they had all made great sense. In other words, be like the Nihilists, and believe in nothing.
Strikes and Gutters
In the end we find out the millionaire Lebowski is actually a kept husband, a bum just like Jeff "Dude" Lebowski. His focus on achievement and productivity is a facade, just like every plot twist (believe in nothing!). So in the end we're all just as well off to say, "Yeah, whatever" as The Dude did in the beginning. This seems to be the implication.
"Y'know, strikes and gutters, ups and downs...the Dude abides."
Merriam-Webster defines "abide" as, "...2 a: to endure without yielding: withstand; b: to bear patiently: tolerate; 3: to accept without objection." So when The Dude says he abides, it's advice for us all: endure without question, because nothing makes sense.
The narrator says, "The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners." In lying around happily unemployed and bowling, the Dude is a martyr who makes up for the rest of us who commit the sin of thinking there's some sense and great meaning to it all.
That was my perspective. Or am I way off?
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Posted by Art | 8:38 AM EST |
7 comments
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To me The Dude is just about the only "real" person in the movie.
Everyone else hides behind these characters they create but The Dude is real. He dosent need to put on the airs the rest of do. He knows who he is and he is fine with it.
I think there is a little dude in all of us just wanting to get out.
An unpolitically correct bum that wants nothing more than to sit around and enjoy whatever hobbies float their boat.
On another note with the movie. John Tuturo steals the movie with the two scenes he is in. Come on the scene where he is bowling to the Spanish version of "Hotel California," is classic.
One last thing...I am not enjoying winter back here in Ga. it is very cold.
I think John Goodman steals the show. To me this is one of those movies that is always better on subsequent viewings.
I'm too shallow of a thinker to have ever thought about the "deeper" meanings of what the movie is about. I guess I'm only just a step or two away from being the Dude myself. Oh well, I'm only as God made me.
Check out Fargo and Raising Arizona for some other great Coen Brothers Films.
Steve Buschemi in Fargo is most excellent.
That rug really did tie the room together.
I was especially interested that there was a group of people called "nihilists" in the movie, and when I looked up the term in Wikipedia it said, "...life has, in a sense, no truth, and no action is objectively preferable to any other." So I reasoned maybe that's why the plot made no sense. Dude was conned into thinking he was saving the world, but from who he wasn't sure, and in the end it turned out there was nothing to rescue to begin with. He could've sat at home stroking his cock and everything would have been the same. That's nihilism.
I thought it was kinda weak as I was watching it, but now I find myself reminiscing on the bowling alley scenes. I concur, John Goodman pulling a gun over the bowling score card was probably the highlight.
When I read Roger Ebert's review and it described the Dude, "...with a goatee, a potbelly, a ponytail and a pair of Bermuda shorts so large they may have been borrowed from his best friend and bowling teammate...Everybody knows somebody like the Dude," someone Scott and I know sprang immediately to mind.
What's Shabbos?
Saturday, Donny, is Shabbos, the Jewish day of rest. That means that I don't work, I don't get in a car, I don't fucking ride in a car, I don't pick up the phone, I don't turn on the oven, and I sure as shit don't fucking roll! Shomer shabbos!